About 80 women and children urged 26 African countries on Wednesday to honour promises they made three years ago to help fight malaria.
The protesters delivered postcards at a number of embassies in Pretoria, highlighting the need for measures to prevent malaria from spreading.
Organiser Junaid Seedat said 43 African leaders promised a number of decisive steps against malaria at a summit they attended in Abuja, Nigeria, in April 2000.
They undertook, among other things, to scrap all taxes and tariffs of insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs).
”Three years later, 26 countries still levy a tax on the purchase of ITNs,” said Seedat.
”The night attacks and air raids have ended in Iraq, but they continue here in Africa as mosquitoes feast on children not protected by nets.”
The guilty countries include South Africa, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, and Gambia.
The others are: Swaziland, Togo, Somalia, Sao Tome & Principe, Rwanda, Niger, Mauritania, Malawi, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Djibouti, and the Congo.
Seedat said the demonstration sought to inform society — ahead of African Malaria Day on Friday — that many heads of state and donors had not kept their promises.
The group also delivered a letter, addressed to South African President Thabo Mbeki, to the Pretoria offices of the health department.
Seedat described ITNs as a vital tool against malaria, saying these nets had to be made affordable to poor people.
Wednesday’s protest took place under the banner of a global organisation, Massive Effort Campaign, which seeks to mobilise society against Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.
Seedat heads of the South African branch of the organisation.
The letter to Mbeki points out that malaria kills millions of children in Africa each year.
”We now wish to encourage (you) to achieve the targets set at Abuja.” The letter says tax-free ITN’s in Tanzania more than halved the price of the nets, a move that saved thousands of lives.
”It is essential that all Africans reject the notion that malaria cannot be overcome. It is preventable, treatable and curable.” Seedat said the protesters visited about 15 missions of countries which had not yet removed tax on mosquito nets.
”The other guilty ones received their postcards by courier.” Some of them read: ”You can start saving lives by dropping the rhetoric and dropping the malaria tax.”
Seedat said the South African health officials told his organisation they were still negotiating with the finance department over the removal of tax on ITNs.
Comment could not be immediately obtained from the health department. – Sapa